She lifted her eyebrows. “That’s a surprisingly mature attitude.”
“I’m surprisingly mature.” It wasn’t that I wanted to snark back to the principal of my high school, the head honcho (honchess?) of the place I lived, slept, ate, and learned. But her attitude,
her assumption that I was here because I lacked some fundamental ability to keep myself safe,
practically begged for snark.
On the other hand, since I’d made the decision to move deeper into the convent instead of heading back to my room, maybe I did.
Foley lifted her brows, and her expression made her thoughts on my snark pretty clear. “Ms.
Parker, we take the well-being of our students and the reputation of our institution very seriously.”
Given what was going on beneath her institution, I wondered about that. But I managed to keep my mouth shut.
“I expect you’ll return to St. Sophia’s tomorrow?”
“That’s what they say.”
Foley nodded. “Very well. I’ve asked Ms. Green to gather your assignments. Given that tomorrow’s Saturday, you’ll have some time to complete them before classes resume. I’ll arrange for a car to transport you back to St. Sophia’s. If you require anything before your return,
you may contact our staff.”
I nodded. Her work apparently done, she walked toward the door. But then she glanced back.
“About our conversation,” she said, “perhaps I was . . . ill informed about your parents’ professions.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the about-face. “Ill informed?”
“I recognize that you, of course, would know better than I the nature of your parents’ work.”
She glanced down at her watch. “I need to return to the school. Enjoy your evening.”
My mind began to race, but I managed to bob my head as she disappeared around the corner,
then opened and closed the door again.
I stared down at the remote control in my hand for a minute after she’d left, flipping it through my fingers as I ruminated.
It was weird enough that she’d dropped by in the first place—I mean, how many high school principals visited their students in the hospital? She clearly had her own theories about what had happened to me—namely, that it was my fault. I guess she wanted to cover her bases, make sure I wasn’t going to spill to the media or call a lawyer about my “accident.”
But then, out of the blue, she brought up my parents and changed her story? And even weirder,
she actually seemed sincere. Contrite, even, and Foley didn’t exactly seem like the nurturing type, much less the type to admit when she was wrong.
I gnawed the edge of my lip and gave the remote a final flip. Call it what you want—Reapers,
Adepts, magic, firespell, whatever. Things were seriously weird at St. Sophia’s.
True to the doc’s word, I was released the next morning. True to Foley’s word, one of the glasses-clad matrons who usually patrolled the study hall brought casual clothes for me to change into—jeans and a T-shirt, probably selected by Scout—and signed me out. A nurse wheeled me, invalid style, to the front door of the clinic and the St. Sophia’s-branded minivan that sat at the curb. The matron was silent on the way back to the convent, but it was a pretty short ride—only a few blocks back to my new home on Erie. They dropped me off at the front door without a word, and I headed up the stairs and into the building. Although I’d been gone only a couple of days, the convent seemed almost . . . foreign. It hadn’t yet begun to feel like home, but now, it felt farther from Sagamore than ever.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and the main building was all but empty. A handful of students peppered the study hall, maybe catching up on weekend homework or trying to get ahead to pad their academic resumes. The halls that held the suites were louder, music and television spilling into the hallway as St. Sophia’s girls relaxed and enjoyed the weekend.
I unlocked the door to our suite. Scout jumped up from the couch, decked out in jeans and layered T-shirts, her hair pulled into a short ponytail, and practically knocked me over to get in a hug.
“Thank God,” she said. “The brat packers were getting almost unbearable.” She let me go, then gave me an up-and-down appraisal. “Is everything where I left it?”
“Last time I checked,” I said with a smile, then waved at Barnaby, who sat on the couch behind us. She wore a fitted pale blue T-shirt with a rainbow across the front, and her hair was up in some kind of complicated knot. It was verySound of Music .
“Hello, Lily,” she said.
“Hi, Lesley.”
The door to Amie’s suite opened. Amie, M.K., and Veronica piled out of the room, their smiles fading as they realized I’d come home. They were all dressed in athletic shorts, snug tank tops,
and sneakers. I assumed it was workout time.
Amie’s smile faded to an expression that was a lot heavier on the contrition and apology. M.K.’s smile was haughty. Veronica was using both hands to pull her hair into a ponytail. I wasn’t even on her radar.
“You were in the hospital,” M.K. said. There was no apology behind her words, no indication that she thought they might have been responsible for anything that happened to me. They weren’t, of course, responsible, but they didn’t know that. I’d hoped for something a little more contrite, honestly—maybe something in a nice “sheepish embarrassment.”
“Yep,” I said.
“What happened to you?” M.K. had apparently skipped embarrassment and gone right to being accusatory.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” I told them.
“Why? Is it catching?” M.K. snickered at her joke. “Something contagious?”
“There are certain . . . liability issues,” I said, then looked over at Amie. She was the worrywart of the group, so I figured she was my most effective target. “Insurance issues. Parental liability issues. Probably best not to talk about it. We don’t want to have to get the lawyers involved. Not yet, anyway.”
Scout, half turning so that only I could see her, winked at me.
Veronica and Amie exchanged a nervous glance.
“But thanks for the tour,” I added as I headed for my bedroom. I unlocked the door, then stood there as Scout and Barnaby skipped inside.
“It was very educational,” I said, then winked at the brat pack, walked inside, and closed the door behind us.
As dramatic exits went, it wasn’t bad.
I gave Scout and Lesley a mini- update, at least the parts I could talk about in Lesley’s company.
Lesley wasn’t an Adept, at least as far as I was aware, so I kept my replay of Foley’s visit and my chat with Jason purely PG. But I shooed them out of my room pretty quickly.
I needed a shower.
A superhot, superlong, environmentally irresponsible shower. As soon as they were out the door, I changed into my reversible robe (stripes for perky days, deep blue for serious ones),
grabbed my bucket o’ toiletries, and headed for the bathroom.
I spent the first few minutes with my hands against the wall, my head dunked under the spray.
The heat probably didn’t do much good for my hair, but I needed it. I had basement and hospital grime to wash off, not to mention the emotional grime of (1) more of Foley’s questioning of my parents’ honesty; (2) having been unconscious and apparently near death for twelve hours; (3) having been the victim of a prank that led to point number two; and (4) having been carried out of a dangerous situation by a ridiculously pretty boy and having almostno memory of it whatsoever. That last one was just a crime against nature.